


The Island

by Pseudoanonymous



Series: The Woman Out Of Time (Series) [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Lesbian Sex, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2018-12-24 07:56:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12008397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pseudoanonymous/pseuds/Pseudoanonymous
Summary: After the destruction of the Institute, life goes on for Nora and Piper. But when Nora gets pulled into the case of a missing girl and a mysterious place called The Island shrouded in mist, will she come back to her family in the Commonwealth or will the fog take her for good?Starts mise en scene during the Far Harbor questline so if you haven't play it this might be confusing for you. Really more of a character study than plot-driven anyway though.





	1. Mornings Like This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora knows just what Piper (doesn't) like in bed.
> 
> Featuring lots of lazy morning smut.

Piper Wright was a picky woman.

It wasn’t her fault, not really – Nora thought as a hot breath of affection filled her lungs, drawing Piper’s scent into her, throughout her. It was her body that was picky, and Nora didn’t mind.

Her body was picky about how she could come. She couldn’t get off if she wasn’t on top – or, more precisely, if she was on her back. It wasn’t a trust issue, Nora knew, it wasn’t really about feeling vulnerable or uncomfortable with her lover. It was more about feeling degraded.

Piper hated feeling degraded. It wasn’t always logical, what set it off Nora noticed, but it was always there. She didn’t like to be held down or have her hair pulled, even playfully. She loved it when Nora talked to her as they made love – sweet things, dirty things – except the one time Nora had whispered “be good for me” and Piper hadn’t taken a half-second to shoot up and tell Nora off.

Nora learned, and she learned a hundred other little things Piper didn’t like in bed. But far and away her favorite things to know were the little things Piper _loved_.

Piper loved being loved. She soaked it up like a sponge, taking all her pleasure in a way that made Nora only eager to give her more. She loved being caressed, touched carefully and gently like she was precious.

And she _loved_ being praised.

Nora wondered sometimes if she could’ve come from whispers alone, the way Piper could buck or jolt at a simple “beautiful” or “love you” spoken just the right way. And when she did come, Piper could come like a firework flashing in the night sky, big, luminous explosions, a thundercrack, a dramatic fall. She could come again and again sometimes, and by that second or third time she was practically boneless, weak and pliant and it used to be that Nora would stop there, almost worried about her, until once, after, Piper had said how blissful that was and how she’d never been there before, not with anyone, and if they got there again Nora should just keep going, keep pleasuring her, stay with her.

Those times, now, Nora did. She would cradle Piper’s body, glowing with pleasure and the smile on her face, and let her drift off into bliss with her lips on her clit until the humming of Piper’s heartbeat quieted and weak, gentle fingers brushed through Nora’s thick dark hair.

Piper liked lots of small things, too. She liked to be touched everywhere without exceptions. Her ears were so sensitive that Nora could barely run the tip of her tongue across one unless Piper was so close she was practically _there_. She liked to be present and intense, passionate about each touch and each glance. Her intentionality bordered on obsessive, her precision and economy of motion recalling to Nora how Piper reloaded a pistol or lead on the dance floor.

But Piper also liked lazy, warm morning sex. She liked touching slowly and meanderingly, drifting in and out of half-dreaming, taking the pleasure of leisure when it was so rarely given.

Mornings like this.

Mornings where Nora, heavy and fresh from sleep, laid on her belly stretched halfway out over Piper, the bare sheets tangled around them like a nest, musing about all the things Piper liked while the woman herself, hot and soft beneath her, chuckled through their dissipating sleep at the feel of Nora’s clever fingers under her shirt.

“You’re so soft” Nora mumbled, mouth lazily drawing against Piper’s jawline, for what must’ve been the hundredth time.

“Mmm.” The smaller woman responded happily, distantly. Then, some indeterminate amount of time later, “I want your mouth, Blue.”

“Here?” The taller woman whispered, slowly dragging Piper’s nightshirt up to her collarbone before lowering her mouth, hot and wet, onto the pink tip of Piper’s breast.

“Hmpf.” She squirmed, “troublemaker.” The words bubbled through a laugh again, slow and languid, and Nora thought she might die of it. “What are you thinking?” She asked quietly, earnestly, as Nora played slowly with her nipples.

Nora lifted her lips from their precious work on Piper’s chest and let her hands begin to wind down her warm belly and hips. “About the things you like in bed.”

“What do I like?” It was playful, but Piper was more awake now. More engaged. Her eyes opened and shone brightly in the morning light.

“I heard…” a kiss, on her navel, another of the myriad ways Piper liked to be kissed. “Well, someone mentioned…”

“Someone?” A happy mumble, half a moan.

“Um-hmm. Someone mentioned that you might like it if I…” another kiss, the very edge of the cut of Piper’s dark hair, trimmed short and neatly. “If I use my mouth.”

“Who would say such a thing.” Piper remarked with a prick of dryness but just as soon swallowing her words as Nora, with that physical prowess that always gave Piper a little jolt when she wasn’t thinking of it, like now, lifted Piper’s wide hips and flipped their positions suddenly so that Piper was spread atop her, open and warm.

“Blue.” It was husky now, a statement, a warning.

“You’re beautiful like this.” Is all Nora could think to say to that, and when she did she felt Piper relax above her, open more for her.

Piper did love to be praised.

Nora eased her down but Piper went more than willingly, and once Nora’s broad arms could wrap all the way around Piper and her lips could reach everywhere, every inch, it was only Piper’s voice left.

And she could hardly use it.

“B-blue. God. Y…yes, yes.” She mumbled, and all Nora could do to respond was to hum into her which of course made Piper jerk, gasp, mumble more. Another way Piper loved to be touched.

Just a few minutes before the two had been lazy and sleep-bleary, and Nora knew Piper would need some extra time and attention to get there. It could’ve been a half hour, who knew? But eventually Piper’s breath came in shorter and Nora let her fingers snake back up Piper’s toned abdomen, back to her chest to tease her. After that it was not much time at all until Piper came, long and sweet and hard, against Nora’s mouth. With her thighs around Nora’s head the way they were the vault dweller couldn’t hear a thing except her own rushing blood, but she watched Piper come apart above her and would swear, even years later, in that moment she could read Piper’s lips perfectly.

“God, fuck, Blue. I love you!”

It was different, that time, which is why it stuck in Nora’s memory. Piper was always so loud, always came with the shout, so reliably that Nora flatly refused to start anything unless there was some considerable soundproofing, ideally of her own hand, and that children and sensitive ears were reliably far, far away. Or they had, at the bare minimum, at least a pillow for her to scream into in a pinch.

But in that moment Piper was quiet. The _I love you_ was a hoarse whisper, the way her eyes shut just as she said it made it look to Nora like it was the last thing she could get out before she was swept away by it.

And to Nora it was fucking medicine, it was panacea, it was everything she needed to hear (to see) because their life together lately had taken too many turns, it had been too brutal, and too far away.

Nora was taken too much by The Island, and for a little while they both thought The Island might keep her.


	2. Dying Somewhere Familiar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper and Nora talk in the courtyard of The Castle and get, shockingly, nowhere.

“I have to go back, you know. I have to finish it.”

A long pause; Piper striking up a cigarette, the words _can we talk about this later_ perched on her lips like the filter to her Grey Tortoise, letting her eyes unfocus as they watched the courtyard of The Castle in its characteristic noontime briskness.

Nat was already measuring for the next foundation pour; had been since dawn, so excited to be building things at _The Castle_ with _Nora_.

“I know, Blue.” She finally responded, after a long drag. She watched Shaun’s tiny silhouette through the glassless windows of Curie’s office and clinic, the two doing…something Institutey, Piper presumed. He looked like he was in love.

Preston wouldn’t be pleased.

“When?” She asked, another drag, another glance away.

“I don’t know. A week? Ten days? The kids love it here. I don’t want to pull them away, and its safe here, and they’re both growing so much.”

“You’re really making a case for yourself.”

“Piper.” Nora reached out with one hand, turning her by the shoulder so they could make more than glancing eye contact. Nora looked tired – weary, actually, all of a sudden – and Piper felt a pang of guilt for her sudden coldness. It’s just that she hated it. She hated The Island, right now, when she could feel it loom over her happiness, her peace. Peace she absolutely never thought she’d have.

“I know. Believe me.” Nora continued. And she did. She knew that Piper could see it, what The Island was doing to her.

At first, it had been so noble. The Nakano case had been fascinating and The Island itself seemed like another world. It had been her and Nora and Nick on a case, and it felt like old times somehow even though they’d never worked together like that.

And then they’d found DiMA.

At first, it had been about loyalty, too. Nora had to, for Nick – had to chase every loose end down, had to understand. Had to piece together Nick’s broken timeline. To find Kasumi and tell her parents, if not that she was coming back, that at least she was safe. It was a job well done.

But that changed.

Nora’s clear intentions changed on The Island like animals changed in the fog. They took on fearful shapes. Where once Nora was kindly helping the people of The Island with fog condensers for a few days until she could return to her family, now she was chasing ghosts in the mist for long weeks. Now she was stepping across the threshold of a glowing mausoleum, the Children gathering around their newest recruit.

Now she was in over her head, and they both knew it.

She was _obsessed_.

Piper had only been able to bring her back to shore with the not-so-gentle promise that if Nora wasn’t coming it Piper was going anyhow, even if she had to commandeer a fleet.

It had worked, that time, to shake the fog out of Nora’s head. But Piper wasn’t sure it would work a second time and she was afraid to find out.

When they had come ashore the Commonwealth it was like Nora came alive again in the sunlight. But something between them had broken a little, enough.

When Nora took her only son on the road for the first time since they’d settled at Mercer, Piper stayed behind.

She couldn’t be around her, not then. She was too – angry, maybe, but not precisely.

It didn’t last long anyway. Piper had taken Nat with a Minutemen detail up to Sanctuary only a few days later (Nat’s idea, and her insistence, in fact, though Piper didn’t like to think on it), and since their reunion there the four of them had not been separated.

Somehow in the absence of the fog Piper and Nora had never been closer. They clung to each other at night. They made love through to the morning.

Perhaps it was the looming fear that the fog would take Nora back, eventually. Piper knew it would. She had all the work in the world here, her people, her family. But something about the fog rolled her back in.

When Piper thought about it, really thought about it, she had to admit that she’d want to lose herself in the fog too if she’d lost everything Nora had. It frightened her more than anything else.

“Hey, what’s the look?” Nora asked, gently, and Piper realized she’d been turned to her the whole time, Nora’s strong hand still on her shoulder.

“Sorry. I was just...”

“Thinking.” Nora turned away. “…about The Island.”

“It’s going to take you and no let you go, Blue.” Piper said, suddenly hot, feeling like the falling ash on the butt of her cigarette, burned down and used up.

“Maybe. We run that risk every day.”

“I always sort of counted on the fact that I might die somewhere familiar. Like the lobby of a Red Rocket or a Slocum Joe’s.”

“Don’t joke about this with me right now.”

“Well I don’t know how the hell else to talk about it, Blue!” She was hot again, hands shooting out as she talked. It was just too much, all too much. The lips that had just that morning run softly across Nora’s own now formed a grimace, showing teeth. “Don’t go back. Stay here, be the General. Be an agent. Be here for us.” Her bluntness took them both aback but she wasn’t about to stop. “These past few days, like this morning…Blue…” She blushed, even now, just a little. “I felt so close to you.”

Nora nodded. Oh, she felt it too. “If I went, you wouldn’t come with me again, would you?” Nora wasn’t sure why she’d even put it to a question, when she knew the answer so deep in her bones.

“No, Blue.” Piper put out her cigarette under her heel and looked right into Nora’s eyes.

They were full of love. And fear.


	3. Into The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mysteries and miseries wash ashore Far Harbor.

Ten days, after all, is what it turned out to be.

And on the morning of the eleventh day, Nora awoke before even the wan light of dawn glinted cooly against the great stone walls of The Castle. All the setting foundations and scaffolding that she had been up and down on with Nat all week stood quiet and stoic in the pre-dawn stillness.

All her things were packed and in the Nakano’s boat already, moored on the north side of the peninsula where her armor also awaited. Her traveling clothes were already laid out, her sidearm cleaned and loaded, her canteen filled. Her goodbyes said, the night before, to her son and to Nat, long hugs and promises to be back soon.

To Piper, this morning, a single chaste kiss on her hairline. She couldn’t bear to wake her. Well, she couldn’t bear a lot of things.

She showered in cool water and dressed in the dark of her office so as not to disturb Piper. She scribbled a note, messy longhand, on the back of some patrol report and left it for her instead. She took maybe seven or eight minutes then, a lifetime in the still darkness, to contemplate crawling back into bed with the warm, soft, living body of the woman she loved. She wanted to want to, but there was a swirling blackness in her mind that did not let the sun in and was all a damp and poisoned fog. So instead she left he note, and closed the door, and everything was set.

As Nora walked towards the North shore of the peninsula she saw there, against the thinnest lightening of the horizon, the unmoving figure of her armor and the silhouettes of the two Minutemen on guard who were to help her off. No – three Minutemen.

That was odd. She had been specific about needing two hands to unmoor. The third figure – she drew nearer – was short and wearing a tan coat and a cap and now, lighting a cigarette she swore she could hear strike even from so far off and –

 _Piper_.

Piper lit her cigarette, Piper smoked nervously waiting for Nora. Piper leaned against a mooring post in her Railroad armor, looking for all the world the picture of a soggy Back Bay Bostonian.

And when she saw Nora coming, she snuffed out her practically unsmoked cigarette and fixed a look on her face that said, only Nora knew, _I know, I know_. It was almost a Desdemona look, wearying and long.

“Who did I kiss goodbye this morning?” Nora could not contain her smile. She just could not. This woman was always going to come through for her, wasn’t she, even if she was going to be cross about it the whole time.

Piper hummed, turning to face Nora properly. “Those pre-war luxury showers are your downfall Blue.”

Nora quirked a look at her, a _is-this-what-I-think-it-is_ look, face now dimly lit with pinkish light.

“Yeah, I know, I know.” She shook her head. “Don’t you dare say it.”

“I…” Nora reached out and lightly touched the forearm of Piper’s coat, looking away briefly towards the north. “Why?”

“I’ll be damned if I let that Island take you from Nat.”

“Ah, I see” Nora nodded, faux serious. “No other motivations? Nothing having to do with a particularly attractive vault dweller? Looks great in blue and gold?”

“Do not push your luck.” Piper had a hard time keeping the smile out of her voice, and assumed Nora had noticed. The armor had already been moved into the boat as they were talking, and there was nothing doing now expect to unmoor and head north.

Dawn had broken over the open ocean by the time Nora and Piper boarded. The sea spray, like the rest of the morning, was uncharacteristically still as the boat pulled away from The Castle’s peninsula. The smell of the sea, here almost fresh and natural, filled Nora’s nostrils as ocean breeze pulled strands of her hair back and across her forehead, damp and coarse. Her hair had grown strangely light these last few weeks, from black to nearly bleach-white, an unnatural graying known sometimes on The Island and said to be owing to the densest patches of fog. It made Nora into a ghost on the boat in the early morning so much that Piper could almost lose her figure against the gray dawn sky.

“It’s because I love you.” Piper said, clear and even. Nora turned and stilled, thinking for a moment of what it was that Piper was referring to until she realized. Piper was beautiful in the morning light, glowing and youthful, her dusting of freckles visible more now than usual. “And you kept your promise to me. You didn’t disappear on me. I couldn’t disappear on you, either.”

-

It was about eleven in the morning when the Nakano’s _Seaglass Skipper_ pulled into the drizzly and cold Far Harbor docks. Nora and Piper had been nearly silent on the trip which scared Nora a bit since Piper was nearly never nearly silent, and even now in the bustle of the docks they worked together to unload the boat with the easy practiced rhythm and lack of verbal communication of two women who had travel together for many months.

Nearly silent, too, was the trip through Far Harbor and out to the sandbar, although Piper did make a good-natured quip about how Nora was always running around with favors for the Mariner and why would that be? Why would you be so interested in doing favors for tough, clever brunettes with glasses, Nora?

At least, she thought, Piper was taking it all in stride.

Until she stopped dead in her tracks.

Nora knew to heed Piper’s instincts. They had just set out on the sandbar to Longfellow’s and Nora had been watching Piper like a lovesick idiot, but Piper never let her eyes off the road and when she stopped, chills shot down Nora’s back like an animal in danger. Fluidly she grabbed her sidearm and dashed her eyes behind them. They were alone.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. Somethings wrong. Something’s in the water, Blue.”

As soon as the word “water” was out Nora had holstered her pistol and brought her rifle off her back, racked it, and shouldered in front of Piper.

They waited. For 30 seconds maybe, the only sound they heard was the water of the Narrows breaking across the shore.

And then Nora saw it. At first, just one, a dark patch in the water that took long moments to form into the shape of a body, floating face-down, still in its coat and boots.

And then, there was another. And another.

In the silence and mist, the two women watched 8 bodies wash gently to shore on the sandbar. So gently one might’ve though they were only sleeping.

And slowly, slowly, Nora edged towards them, cursing leaving Dogmeat with Shawn, cursing leaving her armor in the Harbor, cursing that on The Island bodies washed towards her out of the mist like offerings at her feet.

“Oh my God, Blue.” Piper shouldered in front of her again, walked and then jogged to the bodies, piling up in the seafoam. Two bodies were completely naked. Untouched and unmarried as if they had removed their clothes themselves. The other six were dressed.

Dressed in blue. Coats, with buttons and cuffs.

“Blue, don’t, just, stay there and –” but it was too late. Nora had seen. Seen eight of her own men and women. Eight Minutemen. The eight she had brought with her last time, young and ready volunteers, an olive branch to Far Harbor.

They stood there in silence for minutes more. Piper stood and grabbed Nora by the shoulder and tried to move her, but the vault dweller was rooted in place.

“How did they die, Piper.”

“I think they drowned.” She whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Nora stalked away in silence. She should have known.

The worst monsters of the fog were men, after all.


	4. And Into the Fog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ugh poor Nora

The burials were long and quiet, and dressing the naked dead was onerous work. Longfellow helped and drank more than normal – so much so that he was asleep now, probably at his table.

It was such a dreary day that darkness fell almost completely with dusk, and Nora’s hands and face were so chapped from the raw salt of the sea that she went in early, “in” being a ramshackle hut on Bar Island behind Longfellow’s cabin with a rusty workbench and a double bed. It had a mustiness, and the smell of the sea, and a padded down dirt floor that shone in spots from oil.

Nora was sitting hang-dog on the edge of her bed and rubbing her hands with fisherman’s solve when she heard the door open and shut behind her and then, a moment later, felt the mattress depress next to her.

Instead of saying anything, Piper laid her head on Nora’s shoulder and sighed. She must’ve been as tired as Nora.

“What are we doing?” She finally said into the calm.

“Hm?” _Oh no_. Nora stopped working her hands and turned to look at Piper.

Piper chuckled and cracked a fond smile. “Tomorrow,” she clarified, placing her head back on Nora’s shoulder with care. “What are we doing _tomorrow_?”

Nora let out a breath. “Well.  There’s only one lead left. The last mystery.”

“That holotape of DiMA’s? The one that talks about the old Vim factory?”

Nora nodded. She grabbed her Pip-Boy from off the bed beside her and popped out an unmarked, yellowing holotape. She’d felt the ridges along it a hundred times.

“It’s the only thing I don’t understand. DiMA had all these memories of nuclear launch codes, of Nick, but this is the only memory that he only alludes to in the recording. Like it was so damaging that he couldn’t even speak it. I have to….I want to know what happened.

“But now, with what happened today…” Nora trailed off as Piper turned her face into Nora and kissed her sternum through her shirt, nuzzling a little into her. Nora wound one hand up through her thick glossy hair and, as she sighed, she let her fingers make small motions against Piper’s scalp. The reporter wasn’t relaxed – far from it – but Nora could tell how hard she was trying to bring normalcy to this godforsaken island. Piper moved up so the bridge of her nose pressed against Nora’s neck and Nora sighed again. “…I’m worried about Echo Lake.”

“About Bertha.” Piper stated. Small Bertha had been a big reason Nora stuck around the island. It didn’t take a sleuth to see the resemblance between her and Natalie. And Nora always had an incredibly soft spot for kids, Piper thought with a smile. It was something she loved about her.

“Yes. She settled there after asking me to clear it. I know it’s not a Minutemen settlement but –”

“No, I get it Blue. We should go. Just to be sure.”

“Thanks.” Nora said sheepishly. “You know that you don’t have to do –”

“I’m gonna stop you right there doll.” Piper lifted her head back up and shushed Nora with two fingers over her lips, curling just over her scar. “I knew what I was getting into.”

“With me, or The Island?”

Piper got serious all of a sudden, the easy intimacy from a moment ago evaporating in the cold night air. “I don’t like this, Blue. I want you to tell me, once we dig up this last memory, that’s it. We’re not chasing more ghosts in the mist.”

“I saw something.” Nora swears she saw it, a figure in the mist. “I can’t explain it.”

“Hey.” Piper said it softly, almost an endearment, her fingers that had long since trailed off of Nora’s lips now cupping the side of her face. She kissed the taller woman softly, slowly and sweetly like a reassurance. “You don’t have anything to explain, Blue. I just don’t want to lose you out here. I’ve never had anyone like you in my life.”

Nora kissed her again, dropping the holotape and wrapping both arms around her back to nudge her into Nora’s lap. Piper went easily, kneeling on either side of Nora at the edge of the bed. They sat like this often – before making love, while making love – and it was close and comfortable and most needed now, in the darkness of poison fog, familiar. They fit together like this.

“The only other person I ever had to lose was much easier to forbid from leaving home. The guards even locked her in for me.”

Nora smiled. “DiMA’s last memory. That’s it. Then I’ll put The Island behind me. I promise.”

“I’m choosing to believe you.”

“I know.” Nora’s hands at Piper’s wasit gave a little reassuring squeeze and then pulled Piper in so she pitched forward just enough that their foreheads touched gently. “Thank you.”

-

Morning in Far Harbor never seemed to break so much as slowly fade into existence. This morning, like all the others, Nora awoke to damp sheets, damp air and the taste of sea salt on her lips. Unlike other mornings on The Island, however, she awoke tangled in Piper and Piper’s unruly, thick hair.

The last time they were here together, things were so bad they slept separately, or not at all. This, at least, was an improvement.

The trip to Echo Lake Lumber was slow and wet, and punctuated only by the occasional tops of twisted, ruined pines appearing and then dissipating again in the thick fog. They avoided the worst spots, and talked infrequently – and then, in clipped and incomplete phrases, and only about necessities. Even the sound of Nora’s power armor, which she had picked up from the docks that morning, seemed muted in the heavy air.

Piper would not wear armor in Far Harbor. She was terrified of falling through rotting planks or into a mossy sinkhole and not being able to escape. So they plodded along, Nora watching Piper’s body as she went ahead, nimble and quick in the swamping undergrowth. Nora thought her figure looked – well, beautiful, a kind of beautiful that was inescapable and suffocating and large – but also wrong. Wrong to be here, in this place, wrong to be away from The Commonwealth. Wrong to be wreathed as she was in mist. It was not the image Nora had of Piper, but it was the image Nora had of herself and that somehow was worse to see Piper wearing, Nora’s poor choices and mistakes and sins.

They were getting close now, approaching slightly from the north where they had a clearer view of the unearthly fog condensers swirling and dissipating reality around the edge of the lumberyard buildings. A few gray-on-gay silhouettes plodded along on the edge of Nora’s vision, those of workers and fisherman and “farmers” that had been drawn to Echo Lake by tales of a growing settlement there or, perhaps, by simple desperation.

Nora hailed none of them. She left it to Piper to nod and smile and make it clear to these people that the wide and looming figure of power armor behind her was no threat.

They marched through the main lumber house down and out the back and there was Little Bertha, taking a drag on a cigarette and scratching her shoulder through a hole in her ragged shirt. Piper felt the earth settle below Nora.

“Gimme that.” Piper swiped the cigarette deftly from Bertha’s fingers and leaned on her hips regarding the young teen.

“Hey! What’s your problem Piper?”

“You know these things kill you.” Piper looked halfway away and took a drag, blowing smoke out over the old stadium railing where it disappeared against the gray of the fog.

Bertha laughed a short, mean laugh but regarded Piper curiously and a little incredulously. “Nice to fucking see you, too. Don’t worry about the cigs, I won’t live long enough to get bad lungs.” She went to swipe the cigarette back, halfheartedly, but Piper was quick and pulled her hand up and back.

“No way Bertha.” Piper flicked the butt out over the railing and it fell into the unseen gray below. “And don’t say things like that.”

“Whatever.” _She really could be so much like Nat sometimes._

 Nora had already walked off, climbed out of the shell of her armor, and gone to talk to the on-duty guards in clipped tones about Trappers in the area. When Piper caught up to her she was already out of her armor and wiping the ever-present condensation from her brow and shaking it out of her wiry short hair. They were up in the main house, all rotting floorboards that Nora had shored up with scavved steel and molding, peeling paint. From here they could look out towards the water and see the swirling, eerie blue of the fog condensers and the deeper, more frightening blue of the water beyond. For a moment, that’s all they did – stare out together, Nora’s worried eyes scanning the horizon for threats, Piper’s flitting between one point of light and the next wondering what the taller woman was thinking.

“I can hear the gears turning.” Nora led, not looking towards Piper who stood to her right and half a head lower.

“Thinking about what _you’re_ thinking about.”

“Cheater.”

“Never.” She paused, then reached out and turned Nora towards her. Nora’s eyes looked weary and deep-set, but she was giving Piper a loving look.

“Who do you think did it? Why?” Nora only sounded tired. And responsible. She looked back out over her should towards the water.

“I don’t know Blue. But it didn’t happen here. I…we…” Piper sighed and seemed to steel herself. “I’ve always cared. I always _had_ to know the reason. It didn’t matter what kind of risks I was taking or what kind of trouble I was going to get into. Everyone had to know the truth. But now, here…with you…I don’t care. I don’t want to know. I just want to go home and pretend this was all some nightmare.”

Nora understood. Everyone had their limits. Nora would if she was allowed them. “They were my men” she said instead, and instantly regretted it for the way Piper’s cast down with guilt.

“I didn’t mean…I’m so sorry. I -wait. _Wait_.” A hush fell over Nora, over the lumber house, over the fog. Piper’s eyes snapped wide with fear.

And then a scream cut the air.

Nora was already in her armor, grabbing at her rifle on the rack, glancing once back to see Piper draw her sidearm and run down the stairs and it was everywhere now, everywhere all at once, hot rounds slicing the air and the grugles of blood in a man’s throat as loud as the rat-a-tat-tat of a Trapper’s gun, as loud of Piper’s footsteps on mealy wooden boards, as loud as the screams.

Someone had gotten to the turrets up top and tripped them, and they banged out bullets with a sound like a train above her but it was too late, all the men were dead, all the Trappers limp on the ground, too fast, too fast, all done in seconds.

Nora’s whole body itched. Suddenly she was suffocating, burning, and she pulled the emergency release without thinking and fell backwards onto the blessedly cold ground, wet and rank, and only then noticed the flames licking her boots and climbing her armor. The last moving thing at Echo Lake, the only thing in the silence, was the flames.

She ran to the bleachers in her wet shoes, fog silencing her steps, blood maybe in her eyes and across her brow and Piper was there shouting at her and standing in front of her but Nora knew, in her bones she knew.

The fog took everything. It would take her, too.

Small Bertha’s small broken body laid with the awkward tilt of death on the ground behind Piper.

“Bertha! BERTHA!”

“Nora, Nora, stop, I – you’ve –“ Piper placated desperately, tears in her eyes.

“BERTHA!”

“D-doll.”

“NAT!”


End file.
